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Nichols Family Attorney: Video Of Brutal Beatdown, A Watershed Moment; Accused Pelosi Attacker Makes Bizarre Phone Call From Jail; Controversy Around New ChatGPT AI Technology. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired January 29, 2023 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:02]
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington today.
The attorney for the family of Tyre Nichols is calling the video of the 29-year-old being beaten by officers a watershed moment and one that he hopes will lead to Federal police legislation reform.
Late yesterday, we learned the Memphis Police Department had shut down the controversial SCORPION unit that the officers charged in his killing belonged to. The news coming less than 24 hours after the graphic video of Nichols being beaten and tased by officers was released to the public, again, I want to warn you this video is disturbing to watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS)
TYRE NICHOLS, VICTIM: Mama. Mom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give your fucking hands.
(INAUDIBLE CONVERSATIONS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give me your hands.
NICHOLS: Mom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: CNN's Isabel Rosales joins me now.
Isabel, the family attorney, Benjamin Crump, he had a lot to say this morning on CNN, to our colleague, Dana Bash, what did he have to say?
ISABEL ROSALES, CNN REPORTER: Yes, and he told her that clearly there was a problem in America here. These officers not only failed their oath, but they failed, Tyre Nichols. But this beating Jim, he says goes beyond these individual officers and beyond their color and really goes to a problem with the system, with police culture, where time and time again, we're seeing traffic stops, ending with the death of Black men at the hands of police officers. Now Crump also touted how quickly these officers were charged and were fired saying that this is really a blueprint going forward across America, regardless if the officer is Black, White, or anything in between.
He also as you mentioned, called that 1992 video of Rodney King and his beating a watershed moment and also called the videos that we saw, those graphic, graphic videos here with Tyre Nichols another watershed moment, but he says the biggest question here is 30 years later from Rodney King, what progress has been made?
And Memphis, we saw the Police Chief disbanding that SCORPION unit. What we know about it is that it is a specialized unit and it is relatively new. She created it back in November of 2021, really with a focus on addressing violent crime, addressing the surge of crime going into neighborhoods that are troubled in Memphis, and turning their numbers around, because in 2021, they actually broke records in Memphis for the number of high homicides that had gone down.
But despite it being relatively new, this unit, the SCORPION unit comes with its own history of controversy, the tactics and police conduct. Those have been called into question with the attorneys of Tyre Nichols' family saying that they would often go around in unmarked vehicles, and were sometimes unnecessarily aggressive especially to people of color.
Now Crump says that this deactivation of the SCORPION unit, this is a positive step forward, but more work clearly needs to be done at the Federal level. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR NICHOLS' FAMILY: Shame on us if we don't use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act passed. We told President Biden that when he talked to us, because you know, he should marshal the United States Senate with Senator Booker, Senator Schumer, and they should try to get the House to reengage --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSALES: And Jim Crump and Antonio Romanucci, the other family attorney says that they penned an open letter saying that the SCORPION unit, it is not unique to Memphis. They're calling for a national change, including the DOJ -- Department of Justice -- stepping in and investigating these similar sort of units, seeing if they are effective, and if not removing them -- Jim.
ACOSTA: All right, Isabel Rosales. Thank you very much.
I'm joined now by CNN senior law enforcement analyst, Charles Ramsey and CNN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.
Chief Ramsey, let me go to you first, just to pick up on what Isabel was talking about a few moments ago. Yesterday, we learned the Memphis SCORPION unit is being deactivated, that all five former officers accused in the beating death of Tyre Nichols were members of that unit.
But Isabel was saying just a few moments ago, this unit was put together to go after violent crime. What were they doing handling a traffic stop? That seems to be one of the outstanding questions and all of this?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, it was the right move to disband the unit. But don't think for a minute disbanding the unit by itself is going to make a difference because it's not. I mean, the problems run deeper than that, not just in Memphis, but in policing in general.
You have to be, especially with these specialized units, very careful as to who you put in units like this. There has to be a very thorough background check. You have to look at their history, use of force any kind of integrity issue and the same applies for the supervisors that are in that unit. You need to put your very best supervisors in a unit like that, have a tight span of control. And you have to look at how are you going to evaluate their performance.
[15:05:09]
RAMSEY: If it is strictly getting guns and drugs off the street, you're going to have a problem because you're going to have some people who think, you know, as long as I get a gun and so forth, it is okay.
Well, it's not okay, you can police constitutionally and reduce crime at the same time. So the messaging has to be absolutely right on. Everybody has to understand it if you want to move forward and not have these kinds of problems.
And again, it's not just a Memphis issue. It is a policing issue. There is a subculture in policing that has to be addressed. It's not just a one-size-fits-all. There is also a culture of service, but there is one that we can't ignore, and that is people who do go overboard in terms of trying to control crime.
ACOSTA: I mean, Joey, let me ask you about these types of units, because they exist in other cities. Might there be the temptation in some of these units for officers to think, okay, well, we play by a different set of rules. You know, we're here to go after criminals. And, you know, if we've got to break a few eggs to make some omelets, that's what we have to do.
Is there a possibility here that these units are just not a good idea from the get-go?
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, yes, Jim, it certainly seems that way. Good to be with you and the Chief.
You know, I start by saying my dad was a law enforcement official and police officer. I learned a lot from him. And he talked to me regularly about courtesy, about professionalism, about respect and those tenets. And so when I speak of issues involving the police, I'm not at all castigating the entirety of law enforcement, we have to look at the units or individuals who are really acting as outliers to what should be occurring.
There should never be a stop where an African-American male or anyone else feels disrespected, much less, who dies at the hands of police. There shouldn't be units that feel that they're above the law, there shouldn't be units that feel they can take matters into their own hands and be disrespectful, and not courteous and violent and abusive, et cetera because I think it makes things worse, not only for the police, but it makes things worse for society as a whole.
And so I think that in looking at really the units and how they exist, we have to examine the nature of training, we have to examine, you know what communities they're going into, we have to examine their mandate, and we have to examine what specifically they're doing around getting crime under control.
But being abusive, being violent, and certainly killing anyone is not the answer at all, and not only should they be looked at and examined in Tennessee, Jim and Chief, but throughout the country. And I think this sparks that debate and sparks that reexamination and I certainly hope something positive comes out of it.
ACOSTA: And Chief Ramsey, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, he has said, I believe this morning, he does not think there is any law or training or reform that can be done or put in place to prevent what we saw happen to Tyre Nichols.
Do you agree? Do we need to have another national conversation about the way policing is done in this country and nationalize some of these standards?
RAMSEY: Absolutely, we need to have the conversation. There needs to be some standard set or training, there needs to be some standard set for certification and decertification of officers, a centralized database for officers that are fired or leave the service under investigation so that they're not hired somewhere else; accreditation of police departments. There are things that can be done nationally. Not just to throw your hands up and say nothing can be done.
Obviously, it's not going to stop every -- these are people who just consciously decided to act outside of policy, outside of training. They were acting just as rogues, to be honest with you. You can't stop all of that, but you certainly can minimize the opportunity for people to conduct themselves that way.
Recruitment and hiring -- very important. And right now what I'm afraid of because departments are short, some are going to cut standards just to bring in more bodies. That's the worst thing you could possibly do.
And so there's a lot that can be done, and just one last thing. I'm certainly not advocating for the abolition of all specialized units, but I do think we need to take a close look and make sure that the selection process, the mission that we send them on, all of those kinds of things need to be consistent with constitutional policing.
ACOSTA: And Joey, a defense attorney for one of the accused former officers, Desmond Mills, released a statement yesterday saying Mills arrived late to the scene and added: "We are confident that the questions of whether Desmond crossed the lines that others crossed, and whether he committed the crimes charged will be answered with a resounding no."
It does sound at this point, Joey, that this is how perhaps some of the defense arguments are going to be shaping up here in the coming weeks. You know that my client didn't do what these other guys did. He was standing back, You know, he wasn't doing as much of the beating and the kicking as the other.
[15:10:10]
ACOSTA: How do you take stock of that?
JACKSON: Not very well. Good luck with that defense, and here is why.
Jim, everything that occurs, there is a context. You have to know and understand and believe that even if your conduct may not be in the argument that you make to the jury as egregious as some of the others, you're acting in concert. You are fully participating.
If you didn't throw the kick, you didn't throw the punch, did you kick him? If you didn't kick him, were you engaged in the pepper spraying? If you didn't pepper spray, did you do the ask? And so what happens is in the context of everything, you just cannot make an argument to the jury that my client's role was just so limiting that you should give them a pass.
No, your client acted knowing, understanding, believing, and being present when everyone else was participating. So, you have to know that the collective blows, the collective force, the collective beating, the collective misconduct, the collective nature of the unlawful activity could lead to Mr. Nichols' demise.
So I don't think that argument will carry the day at all. I think the jury will take it as a whole, look at them acting in concert and look at the end result of their activities, which unfortunately led to a death that could have been prevented and avoided if they just had a little courtesy, professionalism and respect. That was absent Jim, and it is a shame.
ACOSTA: You're absolutely right. All right, Joey Jackson, Chief Ramsey, thanks so much, really appreciate it.
JACKSON: Thank you.
ACOSTA: President Donald Trump hits the 2024 campaign trail for the first time, how does he escape the shadow of his own actions surrounding January 6?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They said he's not doing rallies, he's not campaigning. Maybe he has lost that step. Now, we didn't. I'm more angry now and I'm more committed now than I ever was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:15:59]
ACOSTA: In New Jersey, police say this unidentified man threw a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue in an arson attempt early this morning. The glass bottle broke, but did not damage the building. The suspect then fled the scene and officials are still searching for him at this hour.
Authorities say they will increase patrols of temples in the area as a result of this attack.
In a bizarre phone call, the man accused in the attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi showed no remorse and even said he wished he had "gotten more of them."
David DePape called a California TV station from jail Friday telling a reporter there that he had an important message for everyone in America. He made the phone call on the same day video of the break-in at the Pelosi home and police body camera footage of the attack on Paul Pelosi was made public.
CNN's Annie Grayer joins me now.
Annie, some disturbing comments made by David DePape to this television station reporter out there in California. What can you tell us?
ANNIE GRAYER, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: That's right, Jim.
It is really disturbing what we are learning. The man who attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi is showing no remorse for his actions. On Friday, after footage of the attack came out, DePape called a San Francisco reporter and said that he wished he had been more prepared for the attack.
And in the clip of the audio I'm about to play for you, DePape also says that while he doesn't name Nancy and Paul Pelosi specifically that there's a conspiracy of a larger number of officials that he believes is a direct harm to democracy.
Take a listen to that clip.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DAVID DEPAPE, SUSPECT IN PAUL PELOSI ATTACK: Liberty is dying. It is being killed systematically and deliberately.
The people killing it have names and addresses. So, I've got their names and addresses so I can pay them a little visit.
I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I'm so sorry. I didn't get more of them. It's my own fault. No one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRAYER: So Jim, this is just one of the conspiracy theories that we're learning from Paul Pelosi's attacker.
ACOSTA: All right, Annie Grayer, thank you very much for that report. We appreciate it.
Joining me now to talk about this is former Republican Congressman and member of the January 6 Committee, Adam Kinzinger. He is also a CNN senior political commentator.
Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
ACOSTA: What is your reaction to what we just heard there? Just some bizarre things to say, but kind of menacing, at the same time.
KINZINGER: It is.
ACOSTA: It made it sound as though he might have wanted to attack other Members of Congress.
KINZINGER: Yes, I mean, it certainly does and it makes me sick.
Obviously, he's got some mental health issues. But what happens is, when you go on Twitter, you go on the internet, you see the conspiracies that arise around people like Nancy Pelosi people anywhere in politics. And then that is a thing that can trigger something like what happened in this guy to say -- he probably in his mind truly believes he is fighting for the United States of America by doing this.
And I'll tell you, for me, it makes me sick to see even members of my own party joke about that attack, make conspiracies about that attack. We've got to have some humanity, and right now in politics, there is no humanity.
ACOSTA: Yes. Well, let me ask you about a different conspiracy theorist. So the former President Donald Trump, he was back on the campaign trail yesterday visiting New Hampshire and South Carolina as part of his third bid for the White House, which is kind of surreal to see take place.
What is it like for you to see him out there campaigning for the White House yet again, after all of the evidence that you and the other members of the January 6 Committee presented to the American people?
KINZINGER: Still, every day, there are like moments where I can't believe that in spite of facts people still choose to believe something completely different, something very contrary to the facts.
The President, the former President going out and speaking, he has been very boring. He is recycling a lot of stuff. He actually looks pretty tired. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have a huge following. He has a huge following still in the Republican party. He is the frontrunner in the Republican Party and frankly, if it's him against whoever the Democrat is, presumably Joe Biden, it could be a tight race.
[15:20:11]
KINZINGER: And I think we have to take that very seriously. Truth matters, and quite honestly, I don't care if you're on the left, right, or somewhere else. You've got to have a commitment to the truth, and when somebody in authority or power gives you permission to believe something that isn't true, or speaks the darkest parts of your heart, it is very dangerous for our country.
ACOSTA: And yet he's trying to campaign like a conventional candidate. Yesterday, he was throwing these digs at Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis. Let's listen to that and talk about that on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Nikki Haley called me the other day, to talk to me. I talked to her for a little while. But I said, Look, you know, go by your heart, if you want to run. She has publicly said that I would never run against my President, he was a great president.
Florida was actually close for a very long period of time. Remember, he closed the beaches and everything else. You know, it is -- they are trying to rewrite history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Congressman, he is having these events. He's on his campaign plane. He's talking to reporters. He is trying to come across like a conventional candidate. And yet, this is somebody who tried to overturn an election.
Should he be treated like a conventional candidate, do you think?
KINZINGER: I mean, from a media perspective, I guess so. I mean, he is legitimately running, we didn't convict him. We impeached him in the House but didn't convict them in the Senate. He has a legal right to run. So that's in the public interest to report.
But look, I think it is essential for the media to also remind people that what he is saying about the 2020 election is completely and utterly false. That's a responsibility of it.
It always is interesting to me, too, to see these people that have tried to walk a line with Donald Trump or love him and then act like they're going to run against him. You can never play anything, either full loyalty to Donald Trump, which he will eventually spit you out for that because he doesn't respect full loyalty, or you have to be committed to full truth.
Really, if you're anywhere in between, eventually, Donald Trump is going to turn on you.
ACOSTA: Let me ask you about George Santos, who sort of, you know, I guess you could say, takes a page from the Trump playbook, maybe the whole playbook. But lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, including George Santos, who delivered this speech after he had lied about being Jewish, lied about his grandparents escaping the Holocaust. Let's listen to some of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. GEORGE SANTOS (R-NY): I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the grandmother of one of my DC staffers who is a 93-year- old survivor of Auschwitz, and is also one of the few survivors of her family who was tragically lost at the hands of Nazi murders.
Antisemitism is a plague in this nation, and it is undoubtably up to us to ensure this kind of tragedy is never to be seen again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: This is somebody who lied about being Jewish. It sounds as though he is trying to maybe put the pieces back together again. Can he be treated like any other Member of Congress now?
KINZINGER: I don't think so.
ACOSTA: Or is it -- is he too far down the road?
KINZINGER: Yes. He lied about literally everything. I think he has actually taken a page from Donald Trump's playbook, which is, if you get accused of something, don't run from it, don't pretend, lean into it. And I think here he knows it's going to tick people off that he gives that speech.
Look, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, not every Member of Congress goes to the floor and gives that speech, he did it for a reason and I talked to a friend that was out, that had seen him out in public and said he loves taking selfies with people and all that kind of stuff. So he loves the fame and he loves ticking people off.
ACOSTA: And let me ask you about, I guess, his boss, Kevin McCarthy, the new Speaker of the House. He was among those who defied a subpoena from the January 6 Committee. He is now Speaker of the House.
What are your thoughts seeing somebody like Kevin McCarthy be the Speaker of the House now after essentially thumbing his nose at you and the rest of the Committee?
KINZINGER: Well, Kevin McCarthy, now, you know, didn't -- in my mind did not defend the integrity of House investigations. And so as they do their investigations, he's going to have to live with that, live with that precedent. I mean, he has got a tight rope to walk. He has obviously got a very thin majority, one of his people in the majority lies about literally everything.
But it for me, it disturbs me. Yes, the January 6 stuff, but just the lack of respect for the institution.
Now, look, I don't think Kevin McCarthy actually had a ton to hide probably when it came to January 6. The other Members of Congress very well may have, but he was playing a game, and that game was to stand against and pretend that January 6 was nothing but a tourist visit.
And now, as they have their oversight coming up, I mean, there are people that can use that prior precedent, and we'll see what happens.
ACOSTA: That was my next question, and that is if these Republican led House Committees issue subpoenas, are those subpoenas worth anything at this point? Could the subject of those subpoenas say, well, look what happened with the January 6 Committee? Why do I need to comply. Kevin McCarthy didn't comply -- and so on.
KINZINGER: Yes, I certainly think so. I think people can look at that precedent and say, hey, you're giving me a subpoena, but you didn't react to it or you -- I mean, yes -- I think each one of these iterations lowers the credibility of the House and frankly, long term for this country, that's a bad thing.
[15:20:00]
ACOSTA: And if they're blocking people like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from Committees, I mean, you know, Republicans are saying, well, you did it to us we're going to do it to you.
KINZINGER: Yes, book look, what did they do it for? Because Paul Gosar spoke at a White nationalist rally, Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, harassed a young kid that was worried about school shootings. That's very different than what they pulled people off the Committees for -- retribution -- look, it just keeps going on the --
ACOSTA: I guess, that's my question. How do you get any work done in the House in the next couple of years?
KINZINGER: I don't know. I think that's what -- like, I don't know how stuff is going to get done, and what I'm particularly worried about Jim is the debt limit because that will have a real impact on real people's lives in a very real way.
ACOSTA: All right, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger. I have a feeling we're going to be talking about that subject in the weeks to come.
KINZINGER: You bet.
ACOSTA: Congressman, thanks very much.
Coming up, it is the technology that can produce an entire school paper in minutes. Why didn't I have this in high school? Now schools are scrambling to stop artificial intelligence from helping kids cheat. What you need to know about ChatGPT, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:30:28]
ACOSTA: Microsoft is making a multibillion dollar investment in the company behind the viral new chatbot tool ChatGPT.
When put to the test, the chatbot has answered questions about the responses that appears written by a human. The program can even write an entire school paper in minutes sparking New York City public schools to ban the platform to cut down on cheating.
CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): ChatGPT short for Chat Generative Pre-Training Transformer is a machine learning model that can generate human-like text. It's been trained on a massive amount of data, allowing it to understand and respond to a wide range of questions and prompts.
YURKEVICH (on camera): What you just heard me reading wasn't written by me, it was written by artificial intelligence ChatGPT.
YURKEVICH (voice over): I simply typed in a prompt, "Write a TV news script written by a reporter about ChatGPT," and in just seconds, the AI spit out the copy you just heard.
ChatGPT has exploded in popularity in recent months. CEOs are now using it to write e-mails. It even passed a Wharton School of Business exam.
YURKEVICH (on camera): Should people be more excited about ChatGPT or more fearful of it?
GARY MARCUS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND NEURAL SCIENCE, NYU: I think we should have a mixed view.
YURKEVICH (voice over): OpenAI which owns ChatGPT says the technology is still in its research phase and can produce inaccurate information.
YURKEVICH (on camera): You like artificial intelligence, but are you here to issue a warning about it?
MARCUS: Absolutely artificial intelligence, sort of like a teenager right now. It's exciting to see the teenager like get its footing, but it is also not there yet, and we can't trust it.
YURKEVICH (voice over): But Microsoft thinks it's a good bet even with some risks. They're investing billions of dollars in OpenAI.
Jack Poe, CEO of Ansibele Health had ChatGPT take three versions of the US medical licensing test, and it passed all three.
JACK POE, CEO, ANSIBELE HEALTH: Not only can it answer very complex questions, it can also modulate its answer.
YURKEVICH (voice over): Paul and his team of 30 doctors started using the platform to help with treatment for their patients who have COPD or pulmonary disease.
POE: What this technology could really enable, and has already started enabling us is to suddenly suggest things that we might not be thinking of at all. It will absolutely save lives.
YURKEVICH (voice over): Jake Heller is a lawyer and founder of Casetext, which helps its clients comb through documents using AI like ChatGPT.
JAKE HELLER, LAWYER AND FOUNDER OF CASETEXT: You can have it read police reports. You can even have it see if witnesses gave contradictory testimony, you can almost certainly help find information that is pertinent to your guilt or innocence.
YURKEVICH (voice over): But Poe and Heller both say that human oversight of ChatGPT is still necessary. OpenAI says the platform can produce harmful instructions.
HELLER: In law, there absolutely is right and wrong answers, and that's why ChatGPT alone is not going to be enough to handle some of the most important questions in fields like law.
YURKEVICH (voice over): And then there's the question of plagiarism. New York City Public Schools banned ChatGPT on school network devices due to concerns about negative impacts on student learning and concerns regarding the safety and accuracy of content.
EDWARD TIAN, FOUNDER, GPTZero: It is incredible innovation, at the same time. It's like opening a Pandora's Box.
YURKEVICH (voice over): Which is why Edward Tian, a 22-year-old Princeton student himself spent his winter break building GPTZero, which he says can detect whether something is likely written by a human or ChatGPT. He says teachers use it to check their students papers.
YURKEVICH (on camera): Is this like one AI cross checking another AI?
TIAN: In a sense, yes.
YURKEVICH: But can it spot misinformation?
TIAN: Oh, okay. Yes. So as opposed to misinformation, it's more of like it can only spot if something is AI generated or human generated.
YURKEVICH (voice over): And that's the greatest fear of all, spreading misinformation. ChatGPT, a tool designed to help humanity could ultimately hurt it.
MARCUS: People who want to manipulate elections and things like that, instead of like writing one thing at a time, they've got to write thousands of things to give for example vaccine denialism more oxygen than it deserves
YURKEVICH: Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[15:35:08]
ACOSTA: And with me now is Kara Swisher, a "New York Times" opinion contributing writer and host of the podcast "On with Kara Swisher."
Kara, let's start with the potential for ChatGPT to be used to cheating. For example, we tried a 2,000-word essay on climate change. The website spit this out, a full essay, and as you heard some schools are starting to ban it.
You know, Kara, this is starting to remind me of, you know, when we see those tweets about the Boston Dynamics robots and people say, you know, humanity, we had a good run, you know, this sort of reminds me of the same thing. Maybe I'm overblowing it. What do you think?
KARA SWISHER, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES" OPINION: Yes, you are. I cannot take another media story about cheating on tests, students have been cheating on tests for centuries. And this is just another way to do it, either through search, or searching of term papers.
So the focus on that seems really strange and rewriting text of TV, you know, reporters, et cetera. I mean, it just means maybe you all should write better, because all it's doing is doing sort of this very simple stuff, writing stuff that a computer probably should write because it's kind of rote.
I think one of the problems is just like, if you think of it more like search on steroids, that is really what's happening here with this particular application, and I think people over anticipate what could happen.
Listen, I'm one -- all one for thinking about consequences of inventions, and I talk about that a lot. But in this case, it is more like a spreadsheet for text.
You know, right now, you don't use an abacus. I don't think Jim, you use a spreadsheet.
ACOSTA: Not in a while.
SWISHER: You put the numbers in and you don't -- you don't get upset when the numbers -- the computer figures out the numbers. This is just them figuring out text by pulling from all kinds of data that might be available to whatever the AI was trained on.
ACOSTA: What about the possibility though that this could be used to spread disinformation, propaganda? Could that bleed into this discussion, do you think?
SWISHER: Well, it's kind of happening right now, all without AI, right? It's happening to the algorithm and all kinds of things. So it's not a -- it is just a more amplified version of it, maybe a more effective one where you can't tell the difference, but it's already -- it has already happened. And the information it is using is stuff that humans generated.
And so the question is, can it make misinformation itself? Well, I don't think so. It is only making things out of stuff we've already done. And so one of the issues is, it'll just amplify it more and not -- the problem has always been these social media networks that don't monitor or moderate correctly, because it's super hard to do, because there's such a volume of it.
And so I don't think -- I think what it is, is that it is just a new way to take text and render it, search in a much more helpful way. And on the negative side, it could also do a lot of bad information, or people will cheat.
But I don't see anything wrong with the CEO using it to send letters. That sounds like a good idea to me.
ACOSTA: Okay. All right, well, we will mark this episode down and we'll come back to you, it if not at least to the apocalypse, we are holding --
SWISHER: Sorry.
ACOSTA: We're going to call you out on it.
SWISHER: I'm not even worried about those robots, by the way. They are not killing us yet.
ACOSTA: They are kind of cute. But let me ask you this. Something that's not so cute.
SWISHER: Sure. Okay.
ACOSTA: Meta is allowing Trump back on Facebook and Instagram. I was at the White House the day he was banned on Twitter, and it came -- you know, all of this came after the January 6 insurrection, and obviously, you know, he was putting things out there on social media that led to that, in many ways led to what occurred.
CNN's Oliver Darcy laid some of this out in his Reliable Sources Newsletter. He said Trump will be permitted to attack the results of the 2020 election without facing consequences from the company, speaking of Meta, however, the spokesperson said If Trump were to cast out in an upcoming election, like the 2024 presidential race, the social giant will take action.
What do you make of that? We're splitting hairs now. We're going to let him you know, commit sins of the past, but not of the future, I guess.
SWISHER: Yes, yes, Well, they've forgiven him. He's out of jail now. That's essentially that of social media jail. And so I think what they're saying is, you know, if he does it again, like he's done every other time, we're going to have guardrails. They love that word "guardrails."
The problem is they didn't have guardrails before, and then it led up -- it wasn't just what was happening in January 2nd, it had been going on for years, as you know. And so he was violating their rules almost constantly, and they just never enforced them, and that is what was happening on all the social networks. They just gave them an exception, which you can argue whether the President should have an exception or not all you want.
But I think the issue is will he use this in the same way he has? Obviously, his behavior on Truth Social would indicate that he will be thrown off pretty quickly if he does the same thing. What he is more interested in his fundraising, that's really been a problem for him and he has used these, especially Facebook, and that's the most, Twitter hardly matters, even though it is noisier from a fundraising point of view. But Facebook has been a real contributor to small money fundraising and donations, and so that's really what's important for him.
So if he can control himself on Facebook and say that sort of vituperative racist nonsense on Twitter, that'll be fine because Facebook won't be judging that.
[15:40:06]
ACOSTA: Yes. Let me ask you real quick before we go. The Ticketmaster situation. Lawmakers were grilling this top executive, Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation Entertainment after the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, I guess we haven't caught up with you in a while on this.
The executive blame the incident on bots driving up demand. Is that -- is that legit?
SWISHER: Sure.
ACOSTA: I mean, what is the actual solution here?
SWISHER: Well, the actual problem was senators using Taylor Swift lyrics constantly. That was really disturbing to me.
ACOSTA: That's true.
SWISHER: But nonetheless, nonetheless, yes, there's a big broad problem and there is a problem with people gaming the system the way it is. And there's also a problem of not being enough competition.
Ticketmaster has, I don't know 50 -- they say 50 to 60 percent, other people put it higher. When any company controls that much of the ticketing system, it's going to be a problem. The problem is how do you make it more competitive because it sort of tends towards a market leader the way ticketing is done.
And so that's -- I think it's a bigger, wider problem that needs to be solved, all kinds of ways, technologically, legislatively. But certainly, Ticketmaster is at fault here. Taylor Swift's a little, I hate to say this, because they're going to come after me, but the way that it was sold was a problem.
And of course, these bots are just pernicious. They are pernicious everywhere, and so that is always going to be a problem. But it's a much more complex and very difficult to solve problem, but maybe ChatGPT could solve it for us.
ACOSTA: I was going to say, if you could have ChatGPT buying the tickets...
SWISHER: No.
ACOSTA: ... to Taylor Swift, and maybe send the Boston Dynamics robotic down there.
SWISHER: I don't know.
ACOSTA: No, but the thing that I think that I wish somebody would solve is when I want to buy tickets for me and my son to go to a basketball game, and I go on StubHub, and the ticket says, they're $100.00 each, and then you click I want to go purchase, and all of a sudden, the whole thing is 350 bucks. I mean, that part right there is a giant rip off.
SWISHER: That's correct.
ACOSTA: And I don't have --
SWISHER: It is scalping --
ACOSTA: If we can solve that problem.
SWISHER: It is used to called scalping. Right, the problem is these brokers. Scalping, right.
ACOSTA: Yes.
SWISHER: And you sort of -- people were angry at the scalpers, but in this case, it's institutionalized right through StubHub and other things. And I guess people should have what the market bears that's kind of capitalism. But at the same time, it feels manipulative. And I know it's the one thing I have to say that gets everybody angry, the idea that something has a face value of $50.00 and sells for $700.00. Like you sort of feel taken advantage of.
And so there has got to be a smarter way to get tickets in the hands of people, but people, if there's money to be made, there's always going to be malevolent players using, in this case, technology to take advantage of it.
So it's a much more complex question. That said, there probably should be more ticketing agencies, so there is more competition, but difficult to do.
ACOSTA: All right, Kara Swisher. Thanks so much.
I have to read a tease now that was put out by ChatGPT, so -- SWISHER: Oh, no Jim. Please stop. Please stop. By the way, can I make one other point?
ACOSTA: Yes.
SWISHER: There are lots of companies there. It's not just ChatGPT, they're getting all the attention, but Google, Microsoft, they -- not just Microsoft -- but Amazon, they all have very significant AI projects going on. So it's definitely going to be a part of the future no matter what. We'll see what happens.
ACOSTA: I feel like it's bad for guys like me, but we'll have to leave it there. All right, Kara, great to see you. Thanks so much.
SWISHER: Be better. Be better.
ACOSTA: I'll do my best. Thanks.
SWISHER: Okay, thanks.
ACOSTA: All right, coming up, just in to CNN, two-time defending champion college quarterback is arrested. The details next.
You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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ACOSTA: This just in to CNN. University of Georgia star quarterback Stetson Bennett was arrested early this morning in Dallas. Police say that officers responded to reports of a man banging on doors. He was taken into custody and charged with public intoxication according to CNN affiliate WFAA. He was released a few hours later.
Bennett was part of George's back-to-back National Championships and was named offensive MVP in both championship games. CNN has been unable to reach Stetson Bennett for comment. We'll keep trying that. We'll give you any developments that come along.
Damar Hamlin is speaking out thanking First Responders and fans in his first public video since suffering cardiac arrest during a Monday night football game earlier this month.
Here is CNN's Coy Wire. He has more on all of this. Hi, Coy.
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hi, Jim.
Damar Hamlin's story has brought out the best in humanity. People have rallied to support him and his charity work with kids raising more than $9 million for his foundation.
Now, the American Heart Association says that nearly 356,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests occur each year in the US, approximately a thousand a day, with about 90 percent of them being fatal, Jim.
Damar Hamlin was one of the lucky few and he is not taking that for granted.
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DAMAR HAMLIN, BUFFALO BILLS SAFETY: What happened to me on Monday Night Football, I feel is a direct example of God using me as a vessel to share my passion and my love directly from my heart with the entire world, and I am able to give it back to kids and communities all across the world who need it the most and that's always been my dream.
I couldn't do this without any of the support and the love, and I can't wait to continue to take you all on this journey with me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Elsewhere, Jim, history for Novak Djokovic in Melbourne winning his 10th Australian Open title. It's also a record tying 22nd Men's Grand Slam title to his name. Djokovic defeating 24 year old Stefanos Tsitsipas in three hard sets, taking the second and third and tie breaks.
Djokovic won his first Grand Slam title at just 20 years old, but he is now 35 and the Serbian showing just how much this still means to him. Afterwards, he was sobbing uncontrollably, climbed into the stands and celebrated and he can't help but think that he was so emotional in part because of how he was demonized, Jim, by many after being deported from the Australian Open a year ago due to his vaccination status.
He had to overcome injury as well, but here he is again regaining the world number one ranking with the win, sharing a message for youngsters afterwards.
[15:50:06]
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NOVAK DJOKOVIC, PROFESSIONAL TENNIS PLAYER: The message really for any young tennis player around the world who is watching this now, and dreaming to be here where Stefanos and I am, dream big, dare to dream because everything is possible. Don't let anybody take away the dream.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: All eyes now turning to the French Open in May, Jim, and a potential showdown for Grand Slam number 23 between Djokovic and none other than that person with whom he is tied, Rafael Nadal.
The early edge going to Nadal, the King of Clay, who's won at Roland Garros 14 times, that's more than any player at any major ever.
ACOSTA: All right, thanks, Coy.
Coming up, parts of New Zealand are bracing for even more rain following massive flooding and landslides. Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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[15:55:21]
ACOSTA: In Northwest Iran, at least three people are dead and more than 800 injured after a strong earthquake struck the region. The new video coming in shows the moment the 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit. Seventy villages across the region had been damaged, relief and damage assessment operations are currently underway.
Parts of New Zealand are bracing for another round of torrential rainfall, this, after the City of Auckland recorded its wettest day ever on Friday and remains under a State of Emergency. Look at all that rain. The death toll rose to four today as rain and flooding continued for a third day, another round of heavy rain falls due to hit on Monday and could bring another seven inches to Auckland.
Coming up, the SCORPION unit in Memphis permanently deactivated and the new call for action at the Federal level following the brutal deadly beating of Tyre Nichols by police.
You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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